Wednesday, October 14, 2015

AVMBP - Day One: Favorite Musical

Day One: Favorite Musical

Les Miserables

Without a doubt, my absolute, number one, favorite musical of all time!!!! I grew up watching Les Miserables because my parents and my older sisters are such huge fans of the story. They love the 1985 Dream Cast production and so I spent a good deal of my childhood listening to Master of The House, I Dreamed a Dream and Do You Hear The People Sing? My family is just in love with this story of redemption, faith and courage and how the musical brings all those elements of Victor Hugo's original work to life on stage and screen.

I also enjoyed that even though it was a musical, it didn't hide darkness that made the story so wonderful and the idea of redemption all the more beautiful. From prostitution, to lying and stealing, murder and crime. People have serious issues with the fact that there are prostitutes in the story, but Fantine becoming a prostitute is an integral part of Les Miserables. Had she not chosen to become a prostitute, than there would be no ideals of forgiveness, redemption and hope that would eventually become her salvation.

Victor Hugo wrote Les Miserables to inform the French society of the depravity and squalor that the lower class were made to live in while the upper bourgeoisie (middle class society, like Marius and his friends) and the aristocracy turned a blind eye. Illegitimate children were the ultimate unforgivable sin and young unmarried mothers were cast into the streets and shunned from society. A criminal was always a criminal in the eyes of the law and therefore, would never be able to forge a new life for themselves. The only hope that these people had was the church and at times, the church could be just as bad or worse, which is why the Bishop of Dignee who saved (and lied for) Val Jean was such an extraordinary character because of his genuine faith and belief in humanity.

The Original Broadway Cast

The 2015 Broadway Cast

Les Miserables is a musical that you can have a love/hate relationship with. In spite of the fact what that almost everyone one in the story dies, you're still left with an overwhelming amount of delight at what Victor Hugo accomplished in his writing. Good and evil. right and wrong, humanity and inhumanity, courage and fear, love and hate, all bound together in a historical setting of everyday life and the people that lived and died for the morals they upheld and the dreams they had for a better world to live in.

2 comments:

I like Les Miserables too, but I really have to be in the mood to listen to it. It is so long and there are so many songs, you basically have to give up your whole afternoon to get the whole story. My favorite album is the Original Symphonic Production, which has Anthony Warlow as Enjorlas. Because... Enjorlas. I do like the Broadway Musical better than the movie adaption, mostly because I felt like I connected more with the characters in the actual Musical. But that is each to his own. I do have a sort of love/hate relationship with it. It is a really good story and I love the Faith element it has, sometimes the music just seems a little clunky. And of course the *Lovely Ladies* but you know. Skip is a fabulous thing.